Salafi and Islamist Londoners: Stigmatised minorityfaith communities countering al-Qaida

Robert Lambert

Published online: 31 May 2008# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract The paper highlights the paradoxical position of certain Salafi and Islamistcommunities in London who have consistently demonstrated skill, courage andcommitment in countering al-Qaida propaganda and recruitment activity whilesimultaneously facing ill-founded criticism from other Muslim communities andsecular political lobbyists for creating the conditions that gave rise to the al-Qaidaphenomena. In doing so the paper compares the experience of Salafi and Islamistcommunities living in London during an ongoing terrorist campaign by al-Qaidawith Jewish and Irish Catholic communities living in London during earlier terroristcampaigns against the UK’s capital city. In each instance community policing isshown to have a crucial role to play in terms of reassurance for minority faithcommunities and the prevention of terrorism. However, the intersection betweenpolicing and counter-terrorism is shown to produce tensions that may weakenminority community confidence in policing and thereby reduce proactive communitysupport for counter-terrorism measures. At this intersection a London policinginitiative is shown to have developed proactive counter-terrorism partnerships withSalafi and Islamist community groups of a pioneering nature. In consequence thesame critics who conflate Salafis and Islamists with an urgent terrorist threat toLondon have accused this policing initiative of appeasing extremism.

Muslim London

Muslim communities are more richly diverse in London than in almost any otherEuropean city [1], not just in terms of ethnic and geographic backgrounds, but alsoin respect of allegiances to different strands of Islamic belief and practice.Nonetheless, in the aftermath of 7/7 the myriad components of Muslim London

Crime Law Soc Change (2008) 50:73–89DOI 10.1007/s10611-008-9122-8

R. Lambert (*)Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drives, Exeter,Devon EX4 4RJ, UKe-mail: r.a.lambert@ex.ac.uk

were united as one in shock and incomprehension in response to an appallingterrorist attack in the capital, carried out by Muslims from outside London in thename of al-Qaida. Only in small pockets of Muslim London was any comprehensionto be found. This paper focuses on Salafis and Islamists—two minority communitiesin Muslim London where comprehension of 7/7 was sharpened by the experience ofcountering the adverse impact of al-Qaida propaganda and recruitment activity overa sustained period in London.1 While ethnic, cultural and political diversity alsoflourishes within Salafi and Islamist communities, it is pertinent to highlight thecommon features of Salafi communities and the common features of Islamistcommunities in London. Firstly, in religious terms, London Salafi communitiesadhere to a universal model where stripped of pejorative usage, the term “Salafi” issimply “a name derived from salaf, ‘pious ancestors,’ given to a reform movementthat emphasizes the restoration of Islamic doctrines to pure form, adherence to theQur'an and Sunnah, rejection of the authority of later interpretations, andmaintenance of the unity of ummah” [2, p 275]—that is, a Muslim fraternity.Similarly, London Islamist communities adhere to a universal model where“Islamist” is merely a term “used to describe an Islamic political or social activist”[2, p 151]. Although minority status applies particularly to London Salafi com-munities, it may also be ascribed to London Islamist communities. There is, ofcourse, interplay and cross-pollination between Salafi and Islamist identities withinburgeoning multi-ethnic Muslim communities in the capital. Nonetheless, moretraditional, quietist strands of Deobandi, Barelvi and Sufi oriented Islamic practiceeclipse both groupings numerically and in terms of influence in the capital aselsewhere in the UK.

London is also home to a growing number of individuals who have forsaken theirparents’ established allegiances and adopted a hybrid identity where “Muslim”denotes a cultural rather than practicing, observant religious identity. Similar shiftsaway from strict religious observance have been noted in immigrant LondonChristian and London Jewish communities in the past. In the current case, manyyoung Muslims have the added incentive of wishing to reduce their vulnerability topost 9/11, post 7/7 Islamophobic profiling by emphasizing their willingness to adoptrecognizable secular lifestyles. In consequence, “cultural Muslims” or evensometimes “secular Muslims” are extremely popular with political lobbyists andcommentators who seek to promote assimilation into secular London society as arole model for other Muslims to follow. Like Sufis, “cultural Muslims” and “secularMuslims” are seen in influential quarters as a counter-balance to young Muslimswho abandon their parents’ traditional “village” piety to adopt stricter Salafi andIslamist practices in much the same way as converts to a new religion. This is alsothe point at which opponents of multi-culturalism join forces with opponents ofSalafis and Islamists to promote a community cohesion agenda based on allegianceto secular values [3]. Writing in the immediate aftermath of 7/7, Kenan Malik

1 The chapter draws on the author’s PhD research material. In turn the PhD research draws heavily on theauthor’s prior role as head of the Muslim Contact Unit, Metropolitan Police, London, UK. See Lambert,Robert, 2008. “Countering al-Qaida Propaganda and Recruitment in London: An Insider’s InterpretiveCase Study.” Ph.D. diss. University of Exeter. Forthcoming.

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highlights an alleged connection between multiculturalism and the worst everterrorist attack in London:

Over the past week, much has been said about the strength of London as amulticultural city. What makes London great, Ken Livingstone pointed out, waswhat the bombers most fear—a city full of people from across the globe, free topursue their own lives. I agree, and that’s why I choose to live in this city.Multiculturalism as a lived experience enriches our lives. But multiculturalismas a political ideology has helped to create a tribal Britain with no political ormoral centre [3].

Muslim sensibilities become inflamed when, typically, even lapsed MuslimLondoner, Sir Salman Rushdie,2 is granted “secular Muslim” status so as to offerexpert comment on “Islamic fundamentalism”, “Islamic extremism” and “the veil”—as if his rejection of his parent’s religion was incidental, merely a half-way housebetween Islam and the West [4]. Similarly, Policy Exchange, an entrenched Londonopponent of all but the most compliant Muslim groups, seeks currency through itsassociation with secular Muslims like Munira Mirza.3 In such ways anti-Muslimsentiment is regularly licensed in the capital on the sound premise that secular AsianLondoners are better able to deflect Muslim complaints of Islamophobia than theirwhite, secular middle class colleagues, especially when described as “cultural” or“secular” Muslims. It is impossible to think of a comparable instance where secularLondoners’ brought up in Christian or Jewish households would be used byinfluential commentators to undermine the religions they have abandoned. Such isthe moral panic caused by terrorism and the willingness to inflame Islamicsensibilities in powerful parts of the capital.

For their part, Sufi Londoners are as diverse as Salafi Londoners yet their definingallegiance to individual religious practice and quietist politics has led to many beingcourted by politicians and political lobbyists as role models and bulwarks against theinfluence of violent extremism and “radicalization”. As the same politicians andlobbyists generally conflate violent extremism with Salafi (often pejorativelyreferred to as “Wahhabi”) communities and Islamist communities, this approachhas exacerbated pre-existing intra-communal tensions. Indeed, many Sufis have beeninvolved in local turf wars with Salafis and Islamists for significant periods over thelast two decades in the capital as elsewhere in the UK. When in the febrile aftermathof 7/7 Abu Muntasir (the father figure of UK Salafism) adopted a more Sufi friendlyposition and questioned his prior attachment to Salafism, he risked the embrace of

2 Outrage at Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses prompted London’s first large scale Muslimdemonstration in 1989. Mainstream media attention focused on a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeni inIran in which the murder of the London based author was sanctioned. As a result lawful protest wasconflated with criminal violence in much the same way as it has been post 9/11. Muslim indignation re-surfaced when the author was knighted in 2007.3 Munira Mirza is an Associate Research Fellow at the right wing think tank Policy Exchange and afounding member of the Manifesto Club, an “organisation that aims to champion humanist politics in the21st Century”. http://www.manifestoclub.com/ accessed 28.1.08.

Salafi and Islamist Londoners: stigmatised minority faith communities countering al-Qaida 75

Westminster commentators anxious to conflate his former position with the terroristthreat Londoners faced [5]:

The room is packed, the discussions go on way beyond the allotted time: thiswas a meeting of young professional Muslims in London at the weekend. Theanguish and self-criticism was unstoppable as they struggled to find answers tohow their faith could have nurtured such a perversion as suicide bombers inLondon. The object of their scrutiny—the chairman singled this out as a markof accepting their responsibility—was not British foreign policy, but their faith.What do the Qur'anic verses about jihad really mean? How can extremistsmisinterpret them? And the imam, Abu Muntasir, patiently tried to answer—it’sbeen a failure of our scholars, a failure of our teachers. The harshness of theself-criticism was painful to hear: this was a community flagellating itself [5].

In addition, prominent Sufi spokesmen in the US and UK issued regular warningsabout the dangers posed by Salafi and Islamist communities for many years beforereceiving receptive audiences in Washington and Westminster post 9/11. Thus, theSufi scholar Abdal-Hakim Murad (otherwise Tim Winter, a lecturer at CambridgeUniversity) was concerned to ensure that Islamophobia4 [6] generated by 9/11 wasdirected at “Wahhabis” and not “traditional” Islam [7]:

The lava-stream that flows from Ibn Taymiyya5...has a habit of closing mindsand hardening hearts. It is true that not every committed Wahhabi is willing tokill civilians to make a political point. However it is also true that no orthodoxSunni has ever been willing to do so. One of the unseen, unsung triumphs oftrue Islam in the modern world is its complete freedom from any terroristicinvolvement. Maliki ulama do not become suicide-bombers. No-one has everheard of Sufi terrorism.... The movement for traditional Islam will, we hope,become enormously strengthened in the aftermath of the recent events6,accompanied by a mass exodus from Wahhabism, leaving behind only amerciless hardcore of well-financed zealots..... Only a radical amputation of thiskind will save Islam’s name, and the physical safety of Muslims, particularlywomen, as they live and work in Western cities. [7]

4 In 1997 Islamophobia: A Challenge For Us All a report by the Runnymede Trust provided an eight partdefinition of Islamophobia that was adopted by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism andXenophobia. The eight components are: (1) Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive tochange; (2) Islam is seen as separate and ‘other’. It does not have values in common with other cultures, isnot affected by them and does not influence them; (3) Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen asbarbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist; (4) Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive ofterrorism and engaged in a ‘clash of civilisations’; (5) Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used forpolitical or military advantage; (6) criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand; (7)hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion ofMuslims from mainstream society; (8) anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.5 Ibn Taymiyyah, d.1328, is a highly regarded figure for Salafi Londoners, as elsewhere in the UK. Thus,typically, the Ibn Taymiyyah Masjid is the name Brixton Salafis gave to their South London mosque—ahub of effective activity against al-Qaida influence.6 9/11

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If 9/11 opened doors for aggrieved Sufis to meet US and UK policy-makers, 7/7allowed them unprecedented access to mainstream UK media increasingly fixatedwith “homegrown terrorism” and the “radicalization” process. Thus, in January 2007Abdal-Hakim Murad explained his concerns about “Wahhabism” on an alarmisttelevision programme Undercover Mosque:

[Wahhabism’s] principle is totalitarian, it’s highly judgemental, it has no trackrecord of dealing with other sorts of Islam or unbelievers with any kind ofrespect. If you are outside the small circle of the true believer you are going tohell and therefore you should be treated with contempt. [8]

One small part of London policing, the Muslim Contact Unit (MCU)7 in theMetropolitan Police Service (MPS) has found the exact opposite to be true on the streetsof Brixton in South London where a Salafi (“Wahhabi”) community has been at the hubof pro-active partnership work aimed at tackling the influence of violent extremism[9, pp 43–44]. According to police, courtesy and respect (and not “contempt”) has beenthe defining characteristic of Salafi attitudes towards non-Muslim partners in this crucialendeavour.8 Similarly, West Midlands Police complained to Ofcom, the independentregulator for UK communications industries, that the Undercover Mosque programmein which Abdal-Hakim Muhad appeared as an expert commentator had been “subject tosuch an intensity of editing that those who had been featured in the programme”(UK Salafis) “had been misrepresented - creating an unfair, unjust and inaccurateperception of both some speakers and sections of the Muslim community” [10]. Thepolice complaint went on to allege that pejorative editing “resulted in material beingbroadcast in a form so altered from the form originally delivered that it was sufficient toundermine community cohesion” [10]. However, West Midlands Police subsequentlypaid substantial damages to the makers and broadcasters of ‘Undercover Mosque’ andapologised unreservedly for making unfounded allegations against the programme.

Unwittingly compounding the sense of pejorative editorial bias identified but laterretracted by West Midlands Police Ofcom highlighted Abdal-Hakim Murad (andother inveterate Sufi campaigners against “Wahhabism” featured in the programme)as compelling “representatives from mainstream Islam”, whose participation in theprogramme validated their decision to dismiss the police complaint [10]. Such anextraordinary failure to acknowledge religious chasms as wide and significant asexisted between Irish Catholic and Loyalist Protestant communities in NorthernIreland during the Troubles is symptomatic of a secular media establishment biasthat willfully ascribes legitimacy to quietist Muslim representatives. Had Ofcombeen in existence during the Troubles it would have had to appoint the Reverend IanPaisley as its “mainstream Christian advisor” when considering a complaint onbehalf of Irish Catholic communities to have shown such a crass willingness toinflame religious sensibilities and intra-communal tensions. Nonetheless, the Ofcomdecision neatly illustrates the extent to which marginalised, minority status canproperly be attributed to Salafi communities in London and Birmingham—the twocities where most of the Undercover Mosque programme was filmed.

7 The MCU consists of eight counter-terrorism police officers (Muslim and non-Muslim) situated withinthe Counter-Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police Service at New Scotland Yard in London.8 Lambert, R. 2008. PhD research, op. cit.

Salafi and Islamist Londoners: stigmatised minority faith communities countering al-Qaida 77

Interestingly, the same establishment blind spot arose when the doyen of theBBC media school of uncompromising interviews, Jeremy Paxman, failed toexpose the bias behind a falsified Policy Exchange anti-Salafi report TheHijacking of British Islam [11] when interviewing Dean Godson, the right-wingthink tank’s research director, on BBC Newsnight [12]. Rather, the fact that thereport’s researchers were described as being Sufi Muslims was taken as proofpositive of its sensitivity to the report’s Salafi victims. False research methodologywould normally cause catastrophic damage to the reputation of a researchestablishment but when the targets are Salafi Muslims it would appear that the endjustifies the means. However, if Salafi communities bore the brunt of that particularexpose, Islamist communities can point to as much pejorative research attention fromthe same think-tank and like-minded lobbyists. The publication and promotion ofWhen Progressives Meet Reactionaries [13] in 2006 was part of a successfulcampaign by lobbyists to present UK Islamist groups as a subversive threat to theUK and democracy generally. Taken in conjunction with a plethora of best-sellingbooks on the topic Londoners searching for an explanation for 7/7 were left in nodoubt that Islamists bore a heavy responsibility for fomenting the conditions thatcreated it [14–17].

“Reformed Islamist radicals” led by Muslim Londoner Ed Hussein have been atthe forefront of this media campaign describing Islamism as posing a threat toWestern stability in much the same way that Communism was understood to doduring the Cold War [18]. In consequence a significant number of non-MuslimLondoners have gained their first and only insight into Muslim London through thelens of Ed Hussein’s best selling autobiographical account in The Islamist [18].Again an astonishing suspension of critical analysis allows experienced journalistsand commentators to attach unwarranted significance to Hussein’s minor role inHizb ut Tahrir in early 1990s Muslim London when assessing the causes of 7/7. Inthe UK, Hizb ut Tahrir campaigns for Islamic rule (a caliphate or khilafa) in theMuslim world without recourse to terrorism. It is a fringe, extremist Muslim groupthat struggles to sustain the interest of its young student members who get easilybored with its relentless, repetitive political campaigning. It therefore has a highturnover of young students like Ed Hussein, the overwhelming majority of whom donot subsequently become terrorists or neo-conservative media pundits. To describeHizb Ut Tahrir as a radicalizing conveyor belt for terrorism, as Hussein does, ishardly warranted and discloses an agenda focused on persuading the UKgovernment to ban the group (a counter-terrorism strategy likely to prove counter-productive [19]):

Home-grown British suicide bombers are a direct result of Hizb Ut Tahrirdisseminating their ideas of jihad, martyrdom, confrontation, and anti-Americanism, and nurturing a sense of separation among British Muslims[18, p 119].

Instead, in important respects Hizb ut Tahrir resembles the secular SocialistWorkers Party who for many years faced the same difficulty in maintaining theinitial interest of UK students in a vanguard movement with no credible strategy forachieving its revolutionary goals. More importantly, the slavish media promotion ofHussein’s opportunistic account fails to acknowledge the significance of his

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conversion to the same Sufi school as Abdal-Hakim Murad9 (Quilliam Foundation(2008) http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/Quilliam/Home.html). Again, it is worthreflecting whether experienced journalists investigating Provisional IRA terrorismduring the Troubles would have ever placed the same credence on the memoirs of aformer armchair Irish republican activist with no experience of terrorism, the zeal ofa convert to Loyalist Protestantism and the lure of celebrity status clouding hisjudgment.

Stigmatizing London’s minority faith communities

Unlike “cultural” Muslims and some Sufis, Salafi and Islamist communities refuse tooffer concessions to the tastes of secular London’s elite. However, in standing bytheir religious principles in the face of powerful opposition, Salafi and Islamistcommunities are following a little regarded London tradition. Just as London hasplayed host over many centuries to a plethora of vibrant, divergent and competingstrands of Judaism and Christianity, the capital is now offering the same hospitalityto diverse believers in the third and concluding Abrahamic faith. In the same waythat popularist politicians and opinion formers dangerously conflated minoritysections of London’s Jewish communities and minority sections of London’sChristian communities with terrorism in the past, so too do their latter daycounterparts describe the capital’s Salafi and Islamist communities as beingintrinsically linked to al-Qaida terrorism. Significantly, the reasons for eachpejorative conflation are comparable in each of the three cases. By the same token,reference to the two earlier cases helps illuminate the position of Salafi and Islamistcommunities in contemporary London. “Minority” is therefore used to describeparticular sub-sections of religious communities in London. This is to take the termaway from its familiar application to ethnic and cultural minorities. In doing so thechapter challenges an established academic and practitioner bias in favour ofsecularism and against faith based identity [20].

In the last decade of the 19th Century, terrorist attacks against the capital by asmall group of London-based Jewish anarchists was used by popularist politiciansand commentators to invoke and incite anti-Semitism towards peaceful, hardworkingLondon Jewish immigrants [21]. While all sections of contemporary, diverse JewishLondon faced anti-Semitic ‘guilt by association’, it was minority, anarchist andpolitically radical Jewish communities in the capital that faced the greatest risk ofstigmatization, disapprobation and suspicion both from other London Jewishcommunities and in wider London society [21]. Then, as now, the capital’sguardians of public tranquility, the Metropolitan Police Force (only now a Service)

9 In January 2008 Ed Hussein and other former Hizb Ut Tahrir activists founded the Quilliam Foundationclaiming that having “traveled the path of extremism and, in recent years, after witnessing the logicalconclusion of unfettered ideology and its impact on adherents, have resoundingly rejected Islamism whileremaining committed Muslims”. Abdal-Hakim Murad is cited as a key scholarly influence. It would be leftto Muslim commentator Yahya Birt to point out the irony of their adoption of Britain’s first Islamist,Abdullah Quilliam (1856–1932), for their anti-Islamist project [http://www.yahyabirt.com/ accessed28.1.08].

Salafi and Islamist Londoners: stigmatised minority faith communities countering al-Qaida 79

had the task of protecting all sections of the capital’s diverse citizenship fromterrorism and the fear terrorists intend it should generate and which politiciansinvariably amplify.10 On that basis newly arrived London Jewish immigrantcommunities had as much right as any other majority or minority section of Londonsociety to expect fair and impartial policing.

Such an expectation would have been warranted given the notion of policing byconsent first established in the capital by Sir Richard Mayne in 1829 [22, p 49]. Theextent to which this policing model took root in the capital is highlighted in a Timeseditorial in 1908 which noted: “The policeman in London is not merely guardian ofthe peace, he is the best friend of a mass of people who have no other counselor orprotector” [22, p 49]. It is not hard to imagine how such an avuncular approach tocommunity engagement might appear attractive to new immigrant Jewish Londonersfamiliar with more oppressive and intrusive policing models in Russia and elsewherein contemporary Europe. However, then, as now, policing in London owed more tothe consent of powerful, majority interests than the consent of stigmatizedcommunities that lacked influence [22, p 51]. Moreover, immigrant London Jewswho were politically active in pursuit of international socialist causes at the end ofthe 19th Century faced far greater risks of stigmatization than their non-Jewishsocialist comrades who were regarded as belonging to indigenous Londoncommunities.

Similarly for three decades (1970—2000) Irish Catholic communities in London,as well as in Northern Ireland, were regularly stigmatised and conflated with theterrorism of the Provisional IRA [23]. Just as Irish Protestant loyalists were onlyrarely and mistakenly conflated with Provisional IRA terrorists (and a consequentthreat to Londoners) during that period so too are most Deobandi, Barelvi, Sufi,Shia, “cultural” or “secular” London Muslims increasingly less likely to bestigmatised as terrorists and subversives (and then only mistakenly) than Salafisand Islamists, minority Muslim Londoners that are routinely conflated withterrorism, extremism and violent radicalism by influential commentators [14–17].While the events of 9/11 and 7/7 inevitably put all London Muslims under thespotlight it is increasingly apparent that London’s Salafi and Islamist communities(like London’s Irish Catholic nationalist and republican communities in the recentpast) face the greatest risk of being cast in the role of ‘suspect communities’ [23].Moreover, just as London Irish Catholic communities faced this very samestigmatisation it must also be noted that their young community members wereoften at high risk from Provisional IRA propaganda and recruitment strategies aswell. Additionally, young members of Salafi and Islamist communities in the UKhave been at risk from highly developed al-Qaida propaganda and recruitmentstrategies since 9/11 [19]. The adverse impact of these instances of parallelstigmatisation of minority communities as terrorists and susceptibility to terroristrecruitment is noteworthy. Salafism and Islamism, as causal or predictive factors, areno more significant to the profile of an al-Qaida terrorist than Catholicism was to the

10 Significantly, in July 2007, breaking with precedents set by their immediate and distant predecessors,Gordon Brown, then a new UK Prime Minister, and Jacqui Smith, then a new UK Home Secretary,responded to al-Qaida inspired terrorist incidents calmly and judiciously in tone and in terms that failed tooxygenate public fear and terror in the way the perpetrators calculated they would.

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profile of a Provsional IRA terrorist. On the contrary, the fact that al-Qaidaspokesmen often invoke and subvert Salafi and Islamist approaches to Islam in anattempt to legitimize their violence helps illustrate why it is that Salafi and Islamistcommunity groups (in London as elsewhere) often have the best tools with which toundermine al-Qaida propaganda within their own youth communities [19]. In doingso they face the double jeopardy of attack from within their own increasinglyalienated communities—where they are described as working with the enemy, vizBush and Blair—and suspicion from without—where Islamists and Salafis arepejoratively conflated with the al-Qaida threat.

Of course, Paddy Hillyard’s seminal account of ‘suspect communities’ publishedin 1993 is especially concerned with the adverse impact of coercive policing andsecurity activity licensed by the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act(first introduced in 1974 and then renewed on an annual basis) on minority Irishcommunities living principally in Northern Ireland, England and Scotland [23]. Ashe noted the vast majority of over 7,000 Irish ‘suspects’ who had by then beenarrested and detained under the emergency legislation had been subsequentlyreleased without charge. By detailing individual, often harrowing, personal accountsof ‘suspects’ arrest, detention and questioning Paddy Hillyard was expressing aminority and poorly funded academic interest then in the notion that suchextraordinary and draconian police powers (first enacted by Parliament in the febrileaftermath of the Birmingham pub bombings) might unfairly alienate and stigmatiseminority sections of Irish communities. This paper shares Paddy Hillyard’s concernsthat the war on terror, launched by George Bush and Tony Blair in the immediateaftermath of 9/11, has similarly licensed draconian and otherwise unlawful treatmentof terrorist ‘suspects’ most notably at Guantanamo Bay and at various undisclosedlocations under the guise of extraordinary rendition that has alienated minoritysections of Muslim communities in the UK as elsewhere in the world.

Salafis and Islamists—police partners or suspects?

In response to Lord Macpherson’s landmark verdict in 1999 that the MPS wasinstitutionally racist [24] a committed cadre of police officers was licensed to foster anew model of “diversity policing”.11 The defining feature of the new model was acommitment to support black and Asian ethnic minorities, Jewish communities, gayand lesbian communities, and women both in the workplace and in all policingencounters. In addition, the “diversity” movement was marked by an intensecommitment to ensure the catastrophic damage caused to the reputation of the MPSby the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry was never repeated. In practice the MPS DiversityDirectorate brought this new “diversity” alliance to roundtable policing discussionsas consultants at every opportunity. Unlike trust building between the MCU andSalafi and Islamist community groups the new diversity alliance conducted businessalong familiar secular lines and would typically conclude meetings and enhanceteam bonding over a drink in a London pub. The MCU’s failure to adopt this

11 Lambert, R. 2008. PhD research. op. cit.

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“communities together” problem solving approach soon brought it to adverseorganisational attention.12 More particularly, the MCU’s willingness to engage withstrict Muslim gender segregation on its own terms rather than seeking to imposesecular rules of engagement was sometimes wrongly interpreted by diversitypolicing as being exclusionary towards Muslim women. In contrast, Salafi andIslamist communities (and other religiously practicing parts of Muslim London)have been grateful that the MCU has respected the rules of Islamic engagement theyhave wished to adhere to. A Salafi woman’s perspective is better understood withparticular reference to From My Sister’s Lips where most popular secularpreconceptions and misconceptions about the misogynist and paternalistic natureof Islam and Muslims are challenged [25]. Against this approach, however, diversitypolicing has sometimes been prevailed upon by powerful secular lobbyists againstforming close partnerships with “extremist”, “oppressive”, “homophobic”, “anti-Semitic” Salafis, Islamists and other Muslim “fundamentalists”.

To date there has been scant academic interest in whether Salafi and Islamistcommunities might be as deserving of equal treatment as other Muslims. Instead,prevailing media wisdom acknowledges a counter-terrorism need for police to talk to“extremists”13 but with the caveat that such unsavory business be done “in a darkalley” [26]. Elsewhere, comment is confined to the need for police to treat ethnicgroups—especially UK Asians (principally Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs)—fairly soas to avoid alienating large sections of the community. Indeed, many Muslim groupshave been quick to support the view that Salafis and Islamists are part and parcel ofthe extremist problem of which al-Qaeda is but one violent manifestation. Thuswhen the Sufi Muslim Council (as approved by the UK’s Department ofCommunities and Local Government [27–29]) attacked UK Salafis and Islamistsas dangerous extremists, it was reminiscent of loyalist Protestant condemnation ofCatholic communities as terrorist sympathizers in Northern Ireland during theTroubles. Interestingly, the Sufi Muslim Council sets itself up as being in thebusiness of “counter radicalization” that is, presumably, preventing young Muslimsfrom becoming Salafi or Islamist.

Needless to say, Salafi and Islamist communities are aware of this governmentalliance with their religious opponents and many tend to retreat further into aposition of “passive disengagement” in consequence. Those few Salafi and Islamistgroups who engage proactively with the MCU to help tackle the adverse influence ofal-Qaeda propaganda feel dismayed at this development. They complain that policeand government refused to take heed when they sought to highlight the extremistproblem posed by influential al-Qaida propagandists like Abu Qatada, Abu Hamza,and Abdullah el Faisal in London throughout much of the 1990s. Now that the threatis taken seriously, government, they complain, appears more comfortable working inpartnership with other Muslim community groups, most especially Sufi groups thathave little knowledge of al-Qaida activity and even less street credibility to be ableto tackle it. Acting as a conduit for the concerns of their community partners, theMCU has explained to civil servants that licensing and encouraging one religious

12 op. cit.13 op.cit

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community (e.g., Sufis) to conduct “counter radicalization” community work againstanother (e.g., Salafis and Islamists) may prove divisive and provide furtherammunition for al-Qaida propagandists who seek to demonstrate how UK and otherWestern governments continue to adopt what they describe as neo-colonial tactics of“divide and rule” when engaging with Muslim communities.

In this context and when addressing Muslim community groups post 7/7, PaddyHillyard is right to highlight the significance of the Northern Ireland experience of“suspect communities” over 30 years in a counterterrorist context [30]. But while allNorthern Irish communities might have suffered to some to degree, the evidence isclear in demonstrating that one religious group—Irish Catholics—bore the brunt ofstereotyping, profiling, and stigmatization. This is not to overlook the fact that goodcounterterrorism policing will always properly investigate intelligence links toterrorist activity—rather to argue that poor policing lazily mimics good practice byresorting to superficial stereotypes. On this basis, Tarique Ghaffur and Ali Dezaei—senior Muslim police voices in London—make brave and important points inarguing against the blanket profiling of Asian Muslim communities [31]. In doingso, however, both officers unintentionally compound the greater risk of Salafis andIslamists—minority Muslim communities—being targeted in the same way IrishCatholics were.

Significantly, in interviews, specialist police officers with firsthand experience ofProvisional IRA community support activity in London acknowledge that one of themajor lessons of that long campaign was UK counter-terrorism’s failure toadequately distinguish terrorists from the Republican Catholic communities wherethey sought support. Then, as now, counter-terrorism had no yardstick for measuringadverse community impact, the extent of the alienation it causes and the potential forterrorist support and recruitment it creates. Then, as now, a Catch 22 situation arisesin which the absence of measurement inhibits an awareness of the problem withincounter-terrorism. It is also likely that an awareness of the connectivity betweenterrorism and counter-terrorism is harder to envisage in the major parts of counter-terrorism that operate in isolation from communities. Indeed, a key motivationalfactor for the specialist officers running the MCU has been to reassure Muslimcommunities that they ought not to be conflated with the terrorists in the way IrishCatholics had been. In practice, more time has been spent advising covert counter-terrorism of its successes and failures in terms of strengthening or weakening theconfidence in Muslim communities it needs to succeed.14

Nonetheless, major reservations look set to remain within Sufi oriented circles inthe UK, US and Europe where Salafis and Islamists are often viewed with deepdistrust and hostility [32–34]. Moreover, Salafi and Islamist community leaders areat pains to stress how this hostility has been exacerbated by a concerted effort fromlobbyists to separate moderates from extremists in the aftermath of 7/7—a senseof good versus bad Muslims [35]. Popularist accounts like Ed Hussein’s TheIslamist compound the problem by describing the most effective Muslimopponents of al-Qaida as extremists, conflating them with fringe groups like Hizbut Tahrir and the terrorist threat itself [18]. Hassan Butt, a former extremist, appears

14 op.cit.

Salafi and Islamist Londoners: stigmatised minority faith communities countering al-Qaida 83

to have undergone a similar conversion and makes the same public conflation [36].The extent to which this approach distorts the reality on the ground is highlightedby the leading Islamist commentator Anas Altikriti in an indignant response thatexposes Butt’s shallow opportunism [37]. Significantly, Hussein’s personalaccount of growing out of Hizb ut Tahrir campus politics is also misused bymedia pundits to posit a model of extremist de-radicalization. Ironically, Hussein’sautobiographical account has more in common with the organic development ofyoung secular students like UK government ministers John Reid, Peter Hain, andJack Straw from far left student rebels to conservative defenders of the status quothan it does to terrorist recruitment. Needless to say, in his role as home secretary,the former communist John Reid welcomed Ed Hussein’s approach and especiallyformer extremist Hassan Butt’s disingenuous insider claim that the al-Qaidaterrorist threat has little to do with UK foreign policy and everything to do withIslamic theology [36]. In the hands of dubious characters such as Butt, stalwartIslamist opponents of al-Qaida of Altikriti’s calibre are pejoratively miscast assubversives.

Certainly, the MCU has assessed the stereotyping, profiling, and conflating ofSalafis and Islamists with al-Qaida terrorism to be misleading and counterpro-ductive [9]. The fact that al-Qaida terrorists adapt and distort Salafi and Islamistapproaches to Islam does not mean that Salafis and Islamists are implicitly linked toterrorism or extremism—nor does it mean that individual Salafis and Islamists arelikely to be terrorists or extremists. No more was Irish Catholicism a key pointer toProvisional IRA terrorism. Equally, it is true that UK recruits to al-Qaida have arange of backgrounds that will sometimes include prior affiliation to, or familyassociations with Deobandi, Sufi or Barelvi traditions. However, it is axiomatic thatby the time they become al-Qaeda suicide bombers (or other active terrorists) UKMuslim recruits have bought into an ideology that distorts strands of Salafi andIslamist thinking. That is why Salafis and Islamists often have the best antidotes toal-Qaida propaganda once it has taken hold. To conflate them with the problem is,according to the MCU, to inhibit their willingness to immunize their communitiesagainst it. This does not make the error of conflating Salafis with Islamists sinceimportant differences exist between the communities. Instead, this acknowledgeswhat they have in common—effectiveness against al-Qaida propaganda andrecruitment.

In both Salafi and Islamist London communities, expertise arose from close“street level” observation of al-Qaida propaganda and recruitment strategies andmethodologies from as early as 1994. Many Salafis candidly admit that they werenearly won over by the blandishments of such compelling recruiters as Abu Qatadabefore they acquired the knowledge and skill to countermand them. Essentiallyinsiders, these observers have witnessed and interpreted the social, religious, andpolitical imperatives that terrorist propagandists and recruiters have employed to winsupport within Muslim communities. Such a vantage point has enabled them todiscern three key terrorist objectives—the recruitment of foot soldiers, therecruitment of operational support members, and the encouragement of wider tacitcommunity support. Intriguingly, in interviews these insider observers explain howin practice processes often best categorized as indoctrination, talent spotting,

84 R. Lambert

recruitment, and selection are far more interwoven and organic than researchersmore familiar with formal recruitment processes might suppose.15 This is a rich areaof specialist community expertise that provides insight and guidance for practi-tioners, mediators, or researchers wishing to enter into a dialogue with prospective,existing, or lapsed al-Qaida members. Of special value to researchers seeking tolocate the trigger point at which susceptible young Muslims become radicalized is aninsider observation that in the real world an alienated young Muslim recruited by ahigh calibre al-Qaida strategist is far more likely to become a suicide bomber thanhis twin brother who is recruited by Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Countering al-Qaida

Nowhere is the failure to reduce the terrorism threat posed by al-Qaida morepalpable than in London, Birmingham and other UK cities where counter-terrorismofficers work around the clock seeking to monitor, disrupt, and apprehend aburgeoning number of al-Qaida operatives and supporters [38, 39], many of whomhave been galvanized by the war on terror itself. To be sure, the 9/11 plotters’strategic purpose to precipitate overreaction by the US government should have beenrecognized immediately as axiomatic to terrorism in Whitehall, most especially byserving and former ministers and civil servants with years spent countering theterrorist tactics of the Provisional IRA, the Irish National Liberation Army and otherassociated Irish Republican terrorist groups. Moreover, the initial failure of militaryoverreaction to the terrorist tactics of the Provisional IRA and the belated success oflaw enforcement and negotiation against that sustained terrorist threat might havebeen at the forefront of Tony Blair’s mind as he traveled to Washington to offer hissupport and counsel to George Bush in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Indeed, theUK Prime Minister’s key role in the negotiation process with the Provisional IRAplaced added weight on his experience and ensuing informed counsel to histransatlantic counterpart. Which is not to suggest that all the lessons learned incombating Irish republican terrorism are easily or immediately transferable to al-Qaida, merely that the experience provided a potentially sound basis for avoidingoverreaction of the kind that terrorists universally seek to provoke.

As Ian Lustick argues, the failure of the war on terror can be linked directly to awillful determination by the neoconservative cabal guiding it to misrepresent the realnature of the terrorist threat [40]. While the invasion of Iraq is the most notableexample of that misrepresentation, this article is more concerned with the extent towhich al-Qaeda has been purposefully misconstrued as an entity that is so opposedto Western interests as to be beyond the scope of law enforcement and negotiation.In The Lesser Evil, Michael Ignatieff expresses the political wisdom that hasprevailed in Washington and Whitehall and facilitates the neoconservative agenda inwhich wholesale human rights abuses against al-Qaida suspects are permitted on thepremise of their exceptional threat [41]. Ignatieff also licenses the scope and

15 op. cit.

Salafi and Islamist Londoners: stigmatised minority faith communities countering al-Qaida 85

methodology of the war on terror by endorsing the prevailing view that al-Qaeda isbeyond politics and thereby beyond negotiation:

The nihilism of their (al-Qaida’s) means—the indifference to human costs—takestheir actions out of the realm of politics, but even out of the realm of war itself. Theapocalyptical nature of their goals makes it absurd to believe they are makingdemands at all. They are seeking the violent transformation of an irremediably sinfuland unjust world [41].

The logical frailty of this position is articulated by Isabelle Duyvesteyn, whodescribes the argument that “religious terrorists have no motivation because theachievement of their goals is impossible” as untenable [42]. Such philosophicalquibbling has not, however, prevented Ignatieff’s view serving to license the war onterror for a majority of liberals outside the neoconservative cabal driving it.According to al-Qaida propagandist Saif al-Adl, 9/11 was intended to provoke theUS to “lash out militarily against the ummah” in the manner if not the scale of “theWar on Terror” [43]. “The Americans took the bait,” he continues, “and fell into ourtrap,” doubtless using hindsight to describe al-Qaida’s ability to predict the massivescale and range of the response to 9/11 [43]. Apart from falling for a familiar terroristploy (and thereby boosting al-Qaeda propaganda and recruitment strategy) responsessuch as Ignatieff’s fail to distinguish between inveterate al-Qaida ideologists (such asSaif al-Adl) who may well be beyond the scope of immediate negotiation and localactivists who may be susceptible to skillful intervention strategies. More importantly,the war on terror has failed to take account of the extent to which young recruits toal-Qaida might easily be rehabilitated to non-violent politics if credible figures intheir communities were encouraged or facilitated to undertake negotiations to thatend. Such negotiations form the cornerstone of the police and Muslim communityinterventions in London that stand outside the narrow parameters of the waron terror.

These initiatives have achieved modest success at the local, grassroots level incountering al-Qaida propaganda and recruitment strategies among sections ofMuslim youth in London who have been targeted by recruiters and propagandists.Unlike the war on terror itself, which has adopted a coercive approach to Muslimcommunities, these London-based police and Muslim community initiatives haveadopted a nonjudgmental approach and used negotiating skills to persuade youngMuslims that al-Qaida propaganda is wrong to sanction suicide bomb attacks like7/7. While this Muslim community outreach work took place for many years inLondon prior to 9/11 without police support, since 9/11 the MCU has facilitated it.To the extent that small-scale police involvement has contributed to modest successin countering al-Qaida propaganda and recruitment, it stands in marked contrast tothe war on terror that has so far eschewed soft community-based approaches. That atleast provides a basis for highlighting what might be considered a pilot project inLondon—one in which police and Muslim community groups have worked in apartnership devoid of coercion. This departure from coercive relationships places thelocal London initiative at odds with conventional counterterrorism that relies insteadon controlled relationships with paid informants.

Counter-intuitively and against the grain of the war on terror, the MCU has alsoidentified the counter-terrorism value of activists and politicians such as JeremyCorbyn and George Galloway, rebel UK MPs at the forefront of the “Stop the (Iraq)

86 R. Lambert

War” campaign and countless “Justice for Palestine” marches in London. Both havedemonstrated an outstanding ability to work in partnership with Islamist communitygroups to persuade Muslim youth to channel their political grievances into local andnational democratic processes.16 In doing so, they have incurred the wrath ofprominent al-Qaida propagandists who are incensed to see potential terrorist recruitsbeing indoctrinated by kafirs and thereby removed from their influence. The ensuingthreats al-Qaida supporters made to Corbyn and Galloway help indicate whichpoliticians and which activists have had the greatest impact against al-Qaidapropaganda and recruitment during the period 2002 - 2007. Thus while Tony Blairportrayed himself as the arch-enemy of al-Qaida, it has been two of his fiercestcritics who may have achieved a greater impact against al-Qaida propaganda andrecruitment at a street level in London. Needless to say, such an analysis incursfierce disapprobation from those political commentators who regard an alliancebetween radical socialists (e.g., Corbyn and Galloway), Islamists (e.g., the MuslimAssociation of Britain) and police as illustrative of a wider malaise. Dean Godsonexpresses this concern eloquently when he suggests the MCU has worked so closelywith its chosen Islamist partners as to be suffering from “ideological Stockholmsyndrome” [44]. In being labeled an “appeaser of extremists” by powerful lobbyistssuch as Godson, the MCU suffered the same stigmatization that awaited any publicservant who offered partnership to any but the most quiescent Muslim communitygroups in the UK during the first 6 years of the war on terror [45–47].

Moreover, while counterterrorism has long recognized the value of communityintelligence, it tends to see this role as falling to non-specialist colleagues—community or neighborhood police officers [48]. Thus the MCU is unique inutilizing significant counter-terrorism experience in a community partnership setting.In doing so it breaches an implicit demarcation line between a covert specialism andmainstream policing, which results in the unit sitting awkwardly between proponentson both sides of the divide [48].

The chief characteristic of MCU support for Salafi and Islamist engagementactivity with youth vulnerable to al-Qaida recruitment is empowerment andfacilitation of community expertise. In the case of the Brixton Salafi community,the MCU is supporting effective community outreach work against the influence ofal-Qaida propagandists that has been undertaken voluntarily and in isolation since1994. Had such close partnership engagement been forged before 9/11 it wouldprobably have brought future terrorists like Richard Reid and Zacarius Mousawi tothe attention of counter-terrorism policing. The distance between this approach andconventional top-down counterterrorism is significant. Nonetheless, researchindicates that nothing in the innovative methodology of the police unit’smethodology restricts hard counter-terrorism from pursuing terrorist suspects inmore familiar ways.17 In interviews, Salafi and Islamist community activists expressawareness that the youth they are engaging might at any time and unbeknown tothem be the subject of a covert terrorist investigation.18 Indeed the same

16 Op. cit.17 op. cit.18 op. cit.

Salafi and Islamist Londoners: stigmatised minority faith communities countering al-Qaida 87

interviewees express an understanding that if their efforts to remove a young personfrom terrorist influence are unsuccessful, they would be obliged to report theindividual to the police. At such a point it becomes clear that this approach tocounter-terrorism places considerable reliance on trust and a concomitant regard forthe community partner’s right to genuine partnership status. The application of apartnership approach to countering terrorist propaganda and recruitment is pioneer-ing, and, therefore, in need of assessment. Indeed, assessment becomes a pressingneed when the community partners—either members of Salafi or Islamistcommunities in London—are unfairly stigmatized and consistently identified assubversives.

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